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ABSTRACT
This paper presents a Twelver Shīʿī defence of human evolution. It was written in dialogue with Shoaib Ahmed Malik's, Islam and Evolution: Al-Ghāzālī and the Modern Evolution Paradigm. It synthesises classical Twelver Shīʿī exegesis, hadith, doctrines, and philosophy with contemporary exegesis and scientific thought. Rather than taking the approach of scientific exegesis, it focuses on the origins of the human being in the immaterial realm, and is one of the few Islamic defences of evolution to be hadith-based. It also considers the possible role of hadith as cultural memory.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Twelver Shiʿism is the largest surviving branch of Shiʿism, a branch of Islam.
2 Hadith are narrations from the Prophet and his contemporaries. Shiʿi hadith are accepted from the Prophet, his daughter, the twelve Imams, and their contemporaries; that is, from the 7th to the 10th century. While there is shared material in the Sunni and Shiʿi hadith corpuses, and many Shiʿi scholars will also consult Sunni hadith, they are distinct traditions which developed in parallel.
3 Shoaib Ahmed Malik, Islam and Evolution (London and New York: Routledge, 2021), 343.
4 Khalil Andani, “Evolving Creation: An Ismaili Muslim Interpretation of Evolution,” Zygon 57:2 (2022), 443–466.
5 An overview of Twelver Shiʿi responses to evolution can be found in Ali Paya, “The Qur’an and the Theory of Evolution: A Brief, Critical Account of the Opposing Views of an Eminent Shi‘a Exegete of the Quran and a Well-Known Shi‘a Geologist”; Maryam Farahmand, Mostafa Taqavi, and Ali Asghar Ahmadi, “Iranian Scholars’ Contemporary Debate between Evolutionary Human Genesis and Readings of the Qur’an: Perspectives and Classification”; Ali Safdari and Fatemah Meghji, “Adamic Lineal Exceptionalism: A Twelver-Shīʿī Perspective of Human Evolution,” in New Frontiers in Islam and Evolution: People, Places, and Hermeneutics, ed. Shoaib Ahmed Malik and David Solomon Jalajel (Routledge, forthcoming); Saida Mirsadri, “The Iranian Reception of the Theory of Evolution; A Disturbing Case in a Metanarrative,” in New Frontiers in Islam and Evolution: People, Places, and Hermeneutics, ed. Shoaib Ahmed Malik and David Solomon Jalajel (Routledge, forthcoming).
6 Sayyid Muḥammad Ḥusayn Ṭabāṭabāʾī, “Kalām fī Kaynūnat al-Insān al-Ūlā,” in al-Mizān fi Tafsīr al-Qurʾān, 21 vols. (Beirut: Muʾassasat al- ʿĀlamī li al-Maṭbūʿāt, 1997), vol. 16, 255–260 (addendum to exegesis of Q. 32:7); Maryam Farahmand, Mostafa Taqavi, and Ali Asghar Ahmadi, “Iranian Scholars’ Contemporary Debate between Evolutionary Human Genesis and Readings of the Qur’an: Perspectives and Classification,” Religions 14:143 (2023) <https://doi.org/10.3390.rel14020143). Accessed 28 June 2023.
7 Maryam Farahmand, Mostafa Taqavi, and Ali Asghar Ahmadi, “Iranian Scholars’ Contemporary Debate between Evolutionary Human Genesis and Readings of the Qur’an.”
8 Evolution is part of the school curriculum in Iran. In Iraq, it was until 2017, until it was dropped from school texts; ISIS also ordered that the teaching of evolution be ceased in areas where it had control. Similarly, it had been part of the curriculum in Lebanon. Evolution is often taught in Pakistan. Of course, individual schools and teachers vary.
9 Malik, Islam and Evolution, 155–176.
10 [Abū Rayḥān al-Bīrūnī], Alberuni’s India, Volume 1: An Account of the Religion, Philosophy, Literature, Geography, Chronology, Astronomy, Customs, Laws and Astrology of India, about A.D. 1030, trans. and ed. by E. C. Sachau (London: Kegal Paul, 1910), p. 198; Abū ʿAlī Ḥusayn ibn Sīnā, al-Shifāʾ, ed. Maḥmūd Qāsim, 2nd ed. (Qum: al-Marʿashī al-Najafī, n.d.), vol. 4, 4–5.
11 Ibn Sīnā, al-Shifāʾ, vol. 4, 4–5. Translation quoted from E. J. Holmyard and D. C. Mandeville, Avicennae De Congelatione et Conglutinatione Lapidum (Paris: Geuthner, 1927), 22.
12 “An Ismaili Muslim Reconciliation of Creation and Evolution,” in Ismaili Gnosis (15 March 2014) <https://ismailimail.blog/2014/03/26/an-ismaili-muslim-reconciliation-of-creation-and-evolution/>. Accessed 10 July 2023, quoting Nasīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī, The Paradise of Submission.
13 “Scholars” here implies Twelver Shīʿīs who are part of or interacting with formal seminary (ḥawzah) tradition; that is, who treat Islam as a textual religion understood by study of the Qur’an and hadith, and who are affiliated with the traditions, institutions, and lines of teaching historically part of the Shīʿī seminary. This is as opposed to other ways in which one might choose to speak about Shiʿism; for instance, through mystical inspiration or secular approaches. In practice, virtually all contemporary academic literature on Shiʿism treats the Shīʿī seminary as the sole voice of religious authority; this note is merely a nod to the reality that religious authority is complex and embodied in various ways, historically and today.
14 That is, extraterrestrials. This idea is bolstered by a handful of hadith speaking of creatures on what appear to be other worlds; for instance, a planet with a different length of day, or “cities in the stars”. Therefore, some contemporary Shiʿi thinkers may read this origin story not only as an account of the origin of homo sapiens, but also as the origin of sentient, intelligent life on other planets, which originated through the same spiritual process and then developed biologically. Shahbaz Haider, Abdullah Ansar, and Syed Ali Asdaq Naqvi, “Shīʿī Imāmī Thought on Existence, Life, and Extraterrestrials,” in Theology and Science (2023) [online] <https://doi.org/10.1080/14746700.2023.2188372>. Accessed 28 June 2023; “Broader Perspective on “Humans”: Analysis of Insān in Twelver Shīʿī Philosophy and Implications for Astrotheology,” in Zygon (forthcoming).
15 Ayatollah Nāṣir Makārim Shīrāzī (b. 1927) advances this view. Nāṣir Makārim Shīrāzī, Tafsīr-e Nemūneh (Tehran: Dār al-Kutub al-Islāmiyyah, 2001), exegesis of 3:33. ʿAlī Mishkīnī (1921–2007), who held that human evolution is compatible with the Qur’an, interprets the verse on “choosing” Adam to mean that God selected Adam from among his contemporaries on account of his intelligence. ʿAlī Mishkīnī Ardabīlī, Tafsīr-i Mabsūṭ, ed. J. F. Bakhshāyishī (Qum: Muʾassisih-yi ʿIlmī Farhangī-yi Dār al-Ḥadīth, 2013), vol. 1, 661–662. Sayyid Maḥmūd Ṭāliqānī (1911–1979) held that Adam was not the first man but rather was preceded by humans before him. Sayyid Maḥmūd Ṭāliqānī, Partuvī az Qurʾān (Tehran: Shirkat-i Sahāmī-yi Intishār, 1983), vol. 6, 50–53.
16 For instance, see Sayyid Muḥammad Ḥusayn Ṭabāṭabāʾī, Tafsīr al-Mīzān, exegesis of 4:1; Ayatollah Javādī Āmulī, Ṣūrat va Sīrat Insān Dar Qur’ān (n.l.: Esrā, 2000), 25–31. This is the preferred view in Ali Safdari and Fatemah Meghji, “Adamic Lineal Exceptionalism.”
17 On the science behind this, see Schott Hershberger, “Humans Are All More Closely Related Than We Commonly Think,” in Scientific American (5 October 2020), which discusses the idea of a relatively recent genetic isopoint; he presents the view that this may have occurred as recently as between 5300 and 200 BC. For that reason, Adam is being referred to as a “recent” common ancestor rather than the “most recent” common ancestor.
18 Ali Safdari and Fatemah Meghji, “Adamic Lineal Exceptionalism”; Sayyid Muḥammad Ḥusayn Ṭabāṭabāʾī, “Kalām fī Kaynūnat al-Insān al-Ūlā”.
19 Sayyid Muḥammad Ḥusayn Ṭabāṭabāʾī, “Kalām fī Kaynūnat al-Insān al-Ūlā”; Maryam Farahmand; Mostafa Taqavi; and Ali Asghar Ahmadi, “Iranian Scholars’ Contemporary Debate between Evolutionary Human Genesis and Readings of the Qur’an”; Nāṣir Makārim Shīrāzī, Tafsīr-i Nemūneh, vol. 11, 85; Ali Safdari and Fatemah Meghji, “Adamic Lineal Exceptionalism”; Murtaḍā Muṭahharī, Majmūʿa Āthār (Tehran: Ṣadrā, 2005), vol. 4, 195. On the topic of whether or not belief in evolution entails kufr, see Shoaib A. Malik and Elvira Kulieva, “Does Belief in Human Evolution Entail Kufr (Disbelief)? Evaluating the Concerns of a Muslim Theologian,” Zygon 55:3 (2020), 638–662; Malik, Islam and Evolution, 278, 282–283.
20 Seyyed Hossein Nasr, “On the Question of Biological Origins,” Islam and Science 4:2 (2006), 183.
21 Seyyed Hossein Nasr, A Young Muslim's Guide to the Modern World, 3rd ed. (Chicago: Kazi, 2003), 186. Malik discusses Nasr’s views in Islam and Evolution, 111, 114–115.
22 Seyyed Hossein Nasr, “On the Question of Biological Origins,” 197.
23 David Hollenberg, “Neoplatonism in pre-Kirmānīan Fāṭimid Doctrine: A Critical Edition and Translation of the Prologue of the Kitāb al-Fatarāt wa-l-Qirānāt,” Le Muséon 122:1–2, 159–202.
24 Khalil Andani, “Evolving creation: An Ismaili Muslim interpretation of evolution”.
25 “An Ismaili Muslim Reconciliation of Creation and Evolution”.
26 Seyyed Hossein Nasr, “On the Question of Biological Origins,” 192. The potential of applying Mullā Ṣadrā’s ideas to evolution is further explored in Ali Arshad Riahi, Mohammad Nassrisfahani, and Mehdi Jafarzadeh, “Mulla Sadra and Evolution Theory,” in International Journal of Islamic Thought 8 (December 2015): 1–11.
27 Muzaffar Iqbal, “Scientific Commentary on the Quran,” in The Study Quran, ed. Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Caner K. Dagli, Maria Massi Dakake, Joseph E. B. Lumbard, and Mohammed Rustom (New York: HarperOne, 2015), 1679–1718.
28 A translation of Ṣaḥābī’s arguments about the meanings of ādam and insān in the Qur’an can be found in Ali Paya, “The Qur’an and the Theory of Evolution,” 9–10.
29 Ali Paya, “The Qur’an and the Theory of Evolution”.
30 This concern is also addressed by Malik in Islam and Evolution, 319–323. In “Iranian Scholars’ Debates,” Maryam Farahmand et al. also note that methods of research with a stronger inclination towards hadith are more inclined to result in a rejection of evolution.
31 Roberto Tottoli, Biblical Prophets in the Qur’an and Muslim Literature (Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press, 2002), 182, 186; Roberto Tottoli, “Origin and Use of the Term Isrāʾīliyyāt in Muslim Literature,” Arabica T. 46, Fasc. 2 (1999), 193–210 <http://www.jstor.org/stable/4057496>. Accessed 13 July 2023.
32 As Haider et al. observe, “The idea that revelation is an allegorical and figurative representation of complex and nuanced truths, is widely held by Islamic philosophers. According to the Shii philosophers as well, following the Sadrian and the Avicennian tradition, the Qur’an is a book that is filled with metaphors and allegories to explain complex truths to the masses.” Haider et al., “Shīʿī Imāmī Thought on Existence, Life, and Extraterrestrials”.
33 Roy Vilozny, “A Šīʿī Life Cycle According to al-Barqī’s Kitāb al-Maḥāsin,” Arabica 54:3, 362–396.
34 Danielle Kira Adams, Rain Stars Set, Lunar Mansions Rise [MA dissertation] (University of Arizona, 2018), 117.
35 Kāna Allāhu wa lā shayʾa maʿahu. This expression is also common in Sunni hadith. Strictly speaking, this version continues to say that God created the thing that all else emerges from; namely, water. However, other Shiʿi hadith emphasise that the very first thing created was the light of the Prophet, so that sequence has been preferred here. Ibn Bābawayh al-Qummī (al-Shaykh al-Ṣadūq, d. 991), al-Tawḥīd, ed. Sayyid Hāshim al-Ḥusaynī al-Ṭihrānī (Qum: Jamāʿat al-Mudarrisīn, n.d.), 67.
36 Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi, The Divine Guide in Early Shiʿism, trans. David Streight (Albany: SUNY Press, 1994), 30–31.
37 For an overview of the role of these five individuals in Shiʿism, see Eva-Maria von Kemnitz, The Hand of Fatima: The Khamsa in the Arab-Islamic World, edited, revised, and finalised by Amina Inloes (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2023), 127–131. As an example of a hadith to his effect, one can see Muḥammad Bāqir al-Majlisī, Biḥār al-Anwār, vol. 8, 53.
38 ʿAlī al-Namāzī al-Shāhrūdī (d. 1985), Mustadrak Safīnat al-Biḥār (Qum: Muʾassasat al-Nashr al-Islāmī, 1419 AH), vol. 2, 243. This is not the most strongly sourced hadith, but nonetheless is popularly circulated and reflects a belief in the centrality of Fāṭimah to the universe.
39 This, and other hadith to this effect, are recorded in Muḥammad Bāqir al-Majlisī (d. 1699), Biḥār al-Anwār al-Jāmiʿa li-Durar Akhbār al-Aʾimmat al-Aṭhar (Beirut: Muʾassasat al-Wafāʾ, 1983), vol. 36, 11.
40 Amir-Moezzi, The Divine Guide in Twelver Shi‘ism, 7–10. Conceptions of the Intellect in the Islamic philosophical tradition are explored in Peter Adamson, Philosophy in the Islamic World: A History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps, vol. 3 (Oxford University Press, 2016), 323.
41 Haider et al., “Shīʿī Imāmī Thought on Existence, Life, and Extraterrestrials”.
42 This is an allusion to Q. 7:172. Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi, The Divine Guide in Early Shiʿism, 35.
43 Uri Rubin, “Pre-Existence and Light—Aspects of the Concept of Nur Muhammad,” Israel Oriental Studies 5 (1975), 62–119.
44 See, for example, Farhana Meyer, An Introduction to Qur’anic Ecology and Resonances with Laudato Si’ (Oxford: Laudato Si’ Research Institute, Campion Hall; Randeree Charitable Trust, 2023).
45 Amir-Moezzi, The Divine Guide in Early Shi‘ism, 125. While the expression “Perfect Man” is often associated with Ibn ʿArabī, it may be accurately applied to the Shiʿi idea of the Prophet or Imam as the perfect manifestation of the divine names.
46 Muḥammad Bāqir al-Majlisī, Ḥayāt al-Qulūb, ed. Sayyid ʿAlī Imāmiyān (Qum: Surūr Publications, 1384 AH (solar)), vol. 1, 127–128. Similar narrations can be found in this section of Ḥayāt al-Qulūb. Ḥayāt al-Qulūb is a lengthy Shiʿi account of the prophets based on hadith.
47 Ibn Abī Jumhūr al-Aḥsāʾī (d. 1505), ʿAwālī al-Laʾālī al-ʿAzīziyyah fī al-Aḥādīth al-Dīnīyyah (Qum: Maṭbaʿah Sayyid al-Shuhadāʾ, 1405/1985), vol. 4, 98. This is related as a ḥadīth qudsī with no chain of narration or primary narrator.
48 Ismāʿīl ibn Kathīr, Al-Yasīr fī Ikhtiṣār Tafsīr Ibn Kathīr (Jeddah: Dār al-Hudāt Lil-Nashr, 1426 AH), vol. 1, 74 (exegesis of Q. 2:34).
49 Malik presents these verses in Islam and Evolution, 94–95.
50 There are too many narrations about the creation of humans from these spiritual clays to mention here. However, one may see Morteza Karimi, “Shi‘a Narrations about Creation from Two Types of Clay (Ṭīnah),” in Proceedings of the Second Annual International
Conference on Shi‘i Studies (London: ICAS Press, 2018), 274–297. Karimi emphasises that the clay narrations in no way interfere with human free will. The narrations on clay are also discussed in Tafsīr al-Mīzān, following the exegesis of Q. 7:36.
51 al-Majlisī, Biḥār al-Anwār, vol. 25, 8, citing Baṣā’ir al-Darajāt.
52 For instance, regarding Q. 20:55 (“From it [the earth] We created you, and to it We shall return you, and from it We shall bring you out once again”), it is related that ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib explained this verse as the reason for the two prostrations in ritual prayer: “It signifies saying ‘O Allah, you created us from this’—meaning the earth. The meaning of lifting the head is ‘from it, You brought us forth.’ The meaning of the second prostration is ‘to it You will return us,’ and the meaning of lifting your head again is ‘and you will bring us forth from it again.’” Al-Majlisī, Biḥār al-Anwār, vol. 79, 271. The implications of this genre of hadith are also discussed in Roy Vilozny, “A Šīʿī Life Cycle According to al-Barqī’s Kitāb al-Maḥāsin”.
53 Badāʾ is the Shiʿi belief that aspects of the divine decree may change.
54 For instance, ʿAllāmah Ṭabāṭabāʾī holds that these narrations indicate that people’s nature relates to their physical composition—for instance, their prenatal development, nutrition, climate, and genetics—but that there is always the possibility of badāʾ (change in divine decree), which would keep people from being chained to this destiny. Al-Mīzān, vol. 7, 143. In this, one might also see premodern ideas of medicine linking people’s natures to the classical elements.
55 For Twelver Shiʿi hadith about free will and predestination, see M. M. Rayshahri (ed.), The Scale of Wisdom: A Compendium of Shi‘i Hadith [Arabic-English], trans. N. Virjee, A. Kadhim, M. Dasht Bozorgi, Z. Alsalami, A. Virjee; ed. N. Virjee, (London: ICAS Press, 2008), 185–187. For a discussion of free will in Twelver Shiʿism, see Mohsen Kadivar, “Human Action within Divine Creation,” in God’s Creativity and Human Action, Christian and Muslim Perspectives, ed. Lucinda Mosher and David Marshal (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2017), 7–22.
56 Malik reviews some theological objections to evolution, such as chance and inefficiency, in Chapter 6 of Islam and Evolution.
57 al-Majlisī, Biḥār vol. 11, 105 (citing Tafsīr ʿAlī ibn Ibrāhīm); vol. 11, 333, 56 (citing Tafsīr ʿAlī ibn Ibrāhīm). Chapter 16 of Kāmil al-Ziyārāt contains narrations on the religious merits of the Euphrates. Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammad ibn Qūlawayh (d. 978/979), Kāmil al-Ziyārāt (n.p.: Nashr al-Fiqāhah, 1417 AH).
58 A narration in Kāmil al-Ziyārāt recounts a conversation between the Kaʿbah and Karbala, wherein the Kaʿbah was bragging about its superiority and Allah tells it: “Refrain from speaking. I swear by My Glory and My Magnificence that your honour compared to the honour that I bestowed upon the land of Karbala is like the drop of water upon a needle that was dipped into the sea. If it were not for the dust of Karbala, I would not have honoured you. If it were not for that which is buried within the land of Karbala, I would not have created you nor would I have created the House about which you have boasted. Now compose yourself and be humble in front of the land of Karbala. Do not be proud or arrogant in front of it, or I shall throw you into the fires of hell.” Ibn Qūlawayh, Kāmil al-Ziyārāt, 389, no. 2.
59 Morteza Karimi, “Shiʿa Narrations about Creation from Two Types of Clay (Ṭīnah)”.
60 Al-Majlisī, Biḥār al-Anwār, vol. 25, 25; vol. 54, 336.
61 “Broader Perspective on ‘Humans’”.
62 Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn Bābawayh (Shaykh al Ṣadūq), al-Khiṣāl, ed. ʿAli Akbar Ghaffārī (Qum: Jamāʿat al-Mudarrisīn, 1983), 359.
63 Liana Saif, “A Preliminary Study of the Pseudo-Aristotelian Hermetica: Texts, Context, and Doctrines,” Al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā 29 (2021), 20–80.
64 al-Ḥākim al-Naysābūrī, al-Mustadrak ʿalā al-Ṣaḥīḥayn (Beirut: Dār al-Maʿrifah, n.d.), vol. 2, 493.
65 Ibn Bābawayh (al-Shaykh al-Ṣadūq, d. 991), ʿIlal al Sharāʾiʿ (Najaf: al-Maktabah al-Ḥaydarīyyah, 1966), vol. 1, 104.
66 Amira El-Zein, Islam, Arabs, and the Intelligent World of the Jinn (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2009), 50.
67 I would like to credit Fatemah Meghji for observing, during the course of a personal conversation, that “jinn” in this hadith could be interpreted as a reference to pre-Adamic humans.
68 See Amina Inloes, Women in Shi‘ism: Ancient Stories, Modern Ideologies (Piscataway, New Jersey: Gorgias Press, 2019), ch. 2, for a detailed discussion of hadith on whether or not Eve was created from Adam’s rib. Malik also cites contemporary Sunni rejection of the idea that Eve was created from Adam’s rib on pages 319–320. He also includes the grammatical argument used by Shii scholars to argue for this.
69 Ibn Bābawayh al-Qummī (al-Shaykh al-Ṣādūq, d. 991), Man Lā Yaḥḍuruhu al-Faqīh (Qum: Jamāʿat al-Mudarrisīn, n.d.), vol. 3, 379.
70 Conversely, even if one does take the stance that Eve was created from Adam’s rib, a metaphorical understanding of this has been advanced by the exegete Fayḍ Kāshānī, who argues that the rib could symbolise the material world; thus, men are more focused on the material world but women are more focused on the hereafter.
71 The barzakh is the place where the deceased go before the final judgment. It seen as having its own type of material and form of existence, different from heaven and hell. It is treated as a parallel sort of existence to this one, which is mostly veiled from the material realm. Some say that the jinn live in a realm similar to the barzakh and are also similarly veiled. Christian Lange, Paradise and Hell in Islamic Traditions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015).
72 Seyyed Hossein Nasr, “On the Question of Biological Origins,” 192.
73 Ibid.
74 For further elaboration on how Mullā Ṣadrā’s ideas might tie into evolution, see Ali Arshad Riahi, Mohammad Nassrisfahani, and Mehdi Jafarzadeh, “Mulla Sadra and Evolution Theory”.
75 The view that Adam was selected for intelligence is mentioned in ʿAlī Mishkīnī Ardabīlī, Tafsīr-e Mabsūṭ, vol. 1, 661–662.
76 On Ṣadrā’s views, see Sajjad Rizvi, “Mulla Sadra,” in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2021 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.) <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2021/entries/mulla-sadra/>. Accessed 10 July 2023.
77 Other regions are also mentioned as his place of descent, such as India, but Mecca is the most commonly accepted.
78 al-Majlisī, Biḥār al-Anwār, vol. 11, 215; vol. 13, 46; al-Majlisī, Ḥayāt al-Qulūb, 89–108.
79 For instance, see al-Faḍl ibn al-Ḥasan al-Ṭabrisī, Majmaʿ al-Bayān (Beirut: Muʾassasah al-Aʿlamī lil-Maṭbuʿāt, 1995), vol. 1, 187.
80 For instance, see Sayyid Muḥammad Ḥusayn Ṭabāṭabāʾī, Tafsīr al-Mīzān, exegesis of 4:1; Ayatullah Jawādī Āmulī, Ṣūrat va Sīrat Insān Dar Qur’ān (n.l.: Esrā, 2000), 25–31. This is the preferred view in Ali Safdari and Fatemah Meghji, “Adamic Lineal Exceptionalism.”
81 This is more pronounced in the Bible but is still supported in hadith. Jean-Pierre Isbouts, “Cain and Abel’s clash may reflect ancient Bronze Age rivalries,” in National Geographic, April 10, 2019 <https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/cain-abel-reflects-bronze-age-rivalry>.
82 Muḥammad ibn Yaʿqūb al-Kulaynī (d. 941), al-Kāfī (Tehran: Dār al-Kutub al-Islāmiyyah, 1367 AH (solar)), vol. 2, 327, no. 4. In his famous commentary on al-Kāfī, ʿAllāmah al-Majlisī declares it “ḥasan, like it is ṣaḥīḥ”. Muḥammad Bāqir al-Majlisī (d. 1699), Mirʾāt al-ʿUqūl fī Sharḥ Akhbār Āl al-Rasūl (Tehran: Dar al-Kitāb al-Islāmīyyah, 1404 AH), vol. 10, 284.
83 Malik, Islam and Evolution, 304–311.
84 On purity of lineage, see Rubin, “Pre-Existence and Light”.
85 al-Muttaqī al-Hindī (d. 1567), Kanz al-ʿUmmāl (n.p.: Muʾassasat al-Risālah, 1979), vol. 2, 9; al-Majlisī, Biḥār al-Anwār, vol. 40, 313.
86 al-Kulaynī, al-Kāfī, vol. 5, 352. “Mountain-dwellers” was used here instead of “Kurds” here since the application of this term to a specific ethnic group may be anachronistic.
87 al-Majlisī, Biḥār al-Anwār, vol. 11, 244; vol. 11, 226. See also Ibn Bābawayh (Shaykh al-Ṣadūq), Man Lā Yaḥḍuruhu al-Faqīh, vol. 3, 382; Muḥammad ibn Masʿūd al-ʿAyyāshī, Tafsīr al-ʿAyyāshī, vol. 1, 215.
88 Javādī Āmulī, Ṣūrat va Sīrat Insān, 25–31
89 This is in a salutation ritually recited to Imam Ḥusayn called Ziyārat al-Nāḥiyah al-Muqaddasah.
90 Malik, Islam and Evolution, 5–6.
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Amina Inloes
Amina Inloes has a PhD in Arab & Islamic Studies from the University of Exeter. She is the author of Women in Shi'ism: Ancient Stories, Modern Ideologies and has translated works on Islamic spirituality, exegesis, and esotericism.